No significant difference seen in risk for symptomatic COVID-19, severe COVID-19 for those receiving BCG or saline placebo<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter<\/b><\/p>\n
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THURSDAY, April 27, 2023 (HealthDay News) — The bacille Calmette-Gu \u00a9rin (BCG) vaccine does not result in lower risk for COVID-19 for health care workers, according to a study published in the April 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine<\/em>.<\/p>\n Laure F. Pittet, Ph.D., from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute at the University of Melbourne in Australia, and colleagues randomly assigned health care workers to receive the BCG-Denmark vaccine or saline placebo and followed them for 12 months. The primary outcomes were symptomatic COVID-19 and severe COVID-19, assessed at six months. A total of 3,988 participants underwent randomization; owing to the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, recruitment ceased before the planned sample size was reached.<\/p>\n The researchers found that the estimated risk for symptomatic COVID-19 was 14.7 and 12.3 percent by six months in the BCG and placebo groups, respectively (risk difference, 2.4 percentage points; 95 percent confidence interval, \u00e2\u0088\u00920.7 to 5.5; P = 0.13). The risk for severe COVID-19 by six months was 7.6 and 6.5 percent in the BCG and placebo groups, respectively (risk difference, 1.1 percentage points; 95 percent confidence interval, \u00e2\u0088\u00921.2 to 3.5; P = 0.34). Most participants who met the trial definition of severe COVID-19 were not hospitalized. The risk differences were similar, but confidence intervals narrower, in supplementary and sensitivity analyses using less conservative censoring rules.<\/p>\n “BCG-Denmark vaccination did not reduce the risk of COVID-19 in health care workers, and the results did not exclude the possibility of an increased risk,” the authors write.<\/p>\n